Happy T-SQL Tuesday! Even though it’s my topic, I still found this post hard to write about because there’s so much I want to say.
Why I Mentor?
The placeholder session that I use to submit to be a mentor for New Stars of Data is called “Pay It Forward.” In a nutshell, those 3 words are why I mentor.
Last year, Tracy Boggiano (blog | LinkedIn) and I were excited to announce the formation of WITspiration, a women in tech mentoring circle.
So where are we a year later? We’re still going and have started our next cohort!
We definitely learned a lot from last year. I think the biggest lesson has been how hard it is to get started. Some circles were able to connect quickly while others kept having problems, with simple things like emails constantly hitting spam filters or life in general getting in the way. By the time we were able to step in, it made the timeline that much longer which made it even harder to help at that point.
One of the things we’re most excited about this upcoming year is that we’re going to do more to help fix some of these issues. Tracy and I are now admins of the SQLWIT Community Slack, which will enable us to resolve some of the email issues by creating a better way for circles to communicate with each other. Not only that, but it’s allowed us to create channels to have virtual circles where members can chat rather than try to find a time to meet. Another advantage is the ability to have a general channel to allow us to have larger group conversations and connections.
(As a side note, Tracy and I would love to see the SQLWIT Slack be used for more than just WITspiration, like it was when it was first started. Maybe we’ll tackle that in year 3, so stay tuned for what comes next.)
We also introduced monthly drop-in meetings, where anyone can join if they’re able. There are two times for these meetings so all time zones can have at least one that they can make.
Another change that we are making is allowing people to sign up at any point rather than once a year. While it means it may take a while to add people to a circle, no one has to wait to join for any of the other online conversations or drop-in meet ups that occur.
What’s been the best part of this first year? Hearing about the connections that some people have made in their circles. It sounds cheesy but making these connections and being able to share issues we face at work in a space designed to help each other figure out these problems. It’s what makes us want to keep this going and build upon the successes.
If you’re a woman in tech and this sounds like something you’re interested in, you can fill out the form here: bit.ly/witspirationsignup. And help us spread the word.
Happy T-SQL Tuesday! This month’s topic comes from Kevin Feasel (b | t), who wants to know: What is your favorite job interview question?
As an interviewer, I’m going to ask you questions about the things I see on your resume, how do you learn, have you done the things you’ll be working on yet, etc. But I think my favorite question is along the lines of “Tell me about a time when things went wrong.” Because things inevitably go wrong. It’s all about how you handle them. And depending on how big the disaster was, the story that goes with it is probably a pretty interesting one. But what I look for is the lessons learned and how you learned them.
On the other hand, one of my favorite interview questions as a candidate came from a technical interview. A previous company used the technique of showing interviewees code and then they would ask the person to tell them about the code. These types of questions can be problematic if you’re trying to trick the candidate and then figuring out how much do you help the interviewee if they are getting the answer wrong. However, during my interview with this company, the interviewer gave me a question: given this scenario, how many ways can you write a query to give you everything in A that doesn’t have a record in B. (They told me they stole that question from someone interviewing them for a difference company.) In the end, I came up with all but 1 way to do this. But it wasn’t necessarily the question itself that made me a fan but it was the conversation that came out of that question. Not only did I learn the technique that I was missing but it created a connection that led to more conversations through the interview where I became excited about a job I wasn’t sure about how I felt. Why? Because these questions and conversations were with someone I wanted to work with because I felt like it was going to be a place where I could learn and grow my skills. And that’s what I was looking for.
I don’t do a whole lot of interviews but what I do look for is a sense of who you are, what you have done, and a sense of how you are going to learn the things you haven’t done yet. And if there’s a connection made where I want to work with you, even better!
It’s the end of the year so it seems appropriate that there be a look back. But I’m going to take things back a bit farther than 2023.
I was going through old digital files and cleaning them up. (No really – I was doing digital clean up. I have witnesses!!!) And I ran across this gem of a document: “Deb_the_DBA persona”. I started it back at the beginning of 2012. I think there had been one or two SQL Saturday Bostons at this point but I wasn’t really going to user group meetings even though I knew when they were. But I was starting to keep track of the community and learning who to follow so I could learn more. I kept seeing others blog and their online “personas” and kept hearing those people say “start a blog!” and finally thought to myself: if I were to do this, how would I do that?
It’s more than a week post PASS Data Community Summit and I’m finally getting around to sharing my thoughts.
From left to right: me, Andy Yun, Jeff Iannucci at the lectern
Personally, I had a blast. I was part of a Learning Pathway with Andy Yun (L | b) and our good friend Jeff Iannucci (L | b) called “Solving Real World SQL Server Problems”. We were thrilled with the number of people who came to listen to us and the level of engagement from the attendees. If you were there, thank you so much for being there! For those who filled out surveys or reached out directly with feedback, thank you! It goes a long way to helping all of us make these sessions even better. And of course, if you have questions, feel free to reach out and we’ll be happy to help.
It meant so much for me to be able to present in person. The two sessions I did this year were the first full length, in person ones that I’ve done at this conference. For the past 3 years, I have presented either virtually or pre-recorded. I don’t want to seem ungrateful for those opportunities because I was thrilled and honored to be a part of Summit; I know it’s not something everyone gets to do. And I hope those who attended those sessions got a lot out of them. But being able to present in person has been something I’ve been looking forward to doing for a long time. There’s something very different about the interaction you have with those who attend when they’re sitting in front of their individual computer screens, even if we’re all online at the same time. PASS Data Community Summit is the conference where I truly found my community and felt a part of #sqlfamily, so to be able to present face to face with attendees meant so much to me. Writing this out, it almost feels silly to make such a distinction, but I hope you understand why.
As always, this conference felt like a reunion with people in the data community. Being able to connect with those I see once a year or have connected with online is priceless. It was also amazing to see how many “first timers“ were there; I think they announced the number was around 43%. As much as I love seeing old friends, it was great interacting with new people. I hope they left with the feeling that they are now part of the larger #sqlfamily. Looking forward to seeing all of them come back next year
One of the reasons that we go to conferences is so we can learn, and I managed to catch a few sessions outside of our learning pathway. But there were so many others I wanted to support this year but wasn’t able to. I’m looking forward to seeing on the recordings when those are available. So many speakers, so little time…
Last year, the big announcement was about SQL Server 2022. This year, the “big” announcement in our space was that Fabric is now GA. It just wasn’t announced at Summit but a few blocks over at MS Ignite. (To be honest, they may have said it at Summit, but I feel like I saw more posts on social media from Ignite than hearing about it directly at Summit.) There were announcements made at Summit but none that felt as grand as last year. Maybe it’s because there wasn’t anything as big as a general release of the next version of SQL Server. We heard a lot about improvements for non SQL Server databases in Azure, general availability of a large set of Managed Instances features, a free Azure DB per subscription (preview), Azure DB hyperscale availability, and additional improvements for Azure Arc. Of these, Azure Arc definitely feels like a feature that I want to pay more attention to in general. Why is that? During the Redgate keynote, the preview of their survey of the database landscape and the instant survey during the talk showed that very few organizations were fully migrated to the cloud. Since Azure Arc can connect to on prem instances as well as databases in Azure, understanding some of how this works and the information and functionality it offers has promise. I don’t live on the admin side of the DBA house but it still is something I want to know more about. We’ll see if I’m able to dive in more.
An AI generated image of me as a superhero, courtesy of the Pure Storage booth.
Of course, AI was discussed. We saw different demos of Copilot, or AI built into new products, throughout the week along with a community keynote that highlighted the pros and cons. It will transform how we work so we need to be aware of the ways it will affect us. The biggest takeaway here was that AI is a tool and not a solution. I know we tend to confuse these things and treat tools as solutions (different rant for a different time), but if we understand the difference and how to use things like AI, we’ll be better off.
They’ve already announced the dates for PASS Data Community Summit for next year and I’m hoping to make it back. In the meanwhile, I’m going to turn my attention to some of the blog post ideas I’ve been floating around as well as other projects. And don’t worry, I’m going to try to find time to relax and catch up on all the shows that I’m way behind on.
Thank you PASS Data Community Summit! Until next year…
It’s another T-SQL Tuesday! This month, Josephine Bush (b | t) hosts our T-SQL Tuesday discussion. Her invitation is about the data platform job titles.
I wrote a post thinking about this topic a few years ago as I was switching jobs. In my career, I’ve had job titles such as DBA, Senior DBA, Senior Database Architect, Senior Database Developer, SQL Developer, Data Engineer. This list may also be (more or less) in chronological order that I held that position. As you can guess, the titles have been a bit of mix but in many ways, my work never really changed. What changed was my skills and expertise as well as my ability to have some influence in the direction we took as a team. Plus the titles are a reflection of what was used at each company. For most of my career, my primary team didn’t consisted of other other data professionals but software developers, QA, business analysts, product and project managers, etc. When I was on a team of other data professionals, you could say our “clients” were those other roles because we worked to support those teams. If I was called in to production issues, things were going wrong.
I stared this post on my way home from Pass Data Community Summit 2022 and finishing it on Thanksgiving here in the US. There’s something that feels appropriate about this fact. Maybe because it was being inspired after attending PASS Summit 2016 and thinking about what I’m grateful for are intertwined in this one topic.
New Stars of Data is the brainchild of Ben Weissman (t) and William Durkin (t) as a platform for new speakers to get a start in the community. They paired the speaker with a mentor to help them prepare. I was lucky enough to be picked as a mentor and then moderator for this. It’s been amazing to see so many of these speakers become stars in the community so quickly. As a continuation, they have asked other speakers to contribute by writing a blog post about their experience getting started as speakers. (They also have a library of resources for speakers as well so definitely check out the New Stars website!)
Happy T-SQL Tuesday! Kevin Kline (t | b) is our host this month. You can read his full invite here, but here’s his request for us:
Tell us the story of how attending an IT conference or event resulted in an amazing career or life opportunity.
This seemed like an easy thing for me to write about when I first sat down. It should be simple enough. But it feels a lot harder because it’s not been a straight line or a single event.
When I think about conferences or events, the one that everything seems to revolve around for PASS Summit, with SQL Saturdays running close behind. I have been to some virtual events but of the in-person conferences, I’ve only made it to those and they seem to stand out to me. But is there really one that was a game changer?
Looking back at attending conferences, I think about what are obvious moment that many would think of something they could pinpoint. An obvious one could be winning Speaker Idol at PASS Summit 2019. I know – we’re all tired of me mentioning this, including me. But I worked really hard on that presentation and to be honest, it gave me a needed distraction from some personal stuff going on at the time. Plus it’s a concrete moment that seemed like it should be a game changer at the time. But did it translate to changing the speaking game for me? Let’s see, I got at least one SQL Saturday rejection after winning and before the pandemic hit. Almost 4 months later, everything else in-person was being canceled and my presentations were all moved to virtual. My session for this upcoming Summit is still going to be pre-recorded\virtual as part of a Learning Path (my in-person abstracts were not selected), which means I have to wait longer to present at Summit in person. So it didn’t feel like an avalanche of speaking opportunities came with the title; it felt like “business as usual”. Do not misunderstand me – I’m so grateful for all of the presentations I have been selected to do and I really do love presenting. But in this context, I’m not sure I can claim winning Speaker Idol as a career or life changing event.
But on the other hand, I became engaged in what I was doing by attending Summit, SQL Saturdays, and the other virtual events that have popped up over the years. I learned how to be better at my job. I learned how to share what I was learning with my coworkers so we could see how we could do better. By blogging and speaking at SQL Saturdays and other events, I started getting involved in the community and have expanded my involvement when I’ve gotten the chance. I’ve been able to be a mentor and moderator at virtual events like New Stars of Data, which I know have been game changers for so many others. All of these activities together helped in the interview process for new jobs because my future employer knew who I was and what I had to offer before I entered the door – physical or virtual. It was all the little things that added up to be the game changer in my career and not a single event.
On a personal note, the connections that I have made to different people have meant the most. Whether it was a SQL Saturday or PASS Summit, I was able to connect to other members in the #sqlfamily community. I would meet someone at one event and get to know them better at the next one. And yes, I even married someone I met through this community. There are still some people that I’ve only really gotten to know virtually over the past couple of years. In some ways, it’s been harder to create these connections virtually, yet many have still been able to happen in spite of and because of it. But if I have questions, I know I can reach out to with questions or get feedback on something I’m working on. But more importantly, so many of these people I can now call “friends” and I hope they know they can say the same about me. And that means more to me than anything else. Which, by itself, is a true game changer.
But can I really claim any of these connections as stemming from a single event? Connections take time to develop so I don’t feel as if I can.
I guess if I did have to focus on one, it would be PASS Summit 2016. This was the conference where I started making the connections to people in the community and understood how to make the most of these events in terms of what I needed to bring back to my day job. It’s where I found my passion for this community, which led to everything else that I’m doing. I’ve written about this before and I still feel the same way. One of the things I’m looking forward to by attending Summit this year in person is that I can get back to what made this such an important conference to me to begin with – focusing on learning the things I need to learn and re-connecting with this community where I feel at home.
Thanks to Kevin for hosting this month! Looking forward to reading everyone’s contributions!
Deb the DBA 